Yeah but how many of us had rocket mail in 59? We had to wait for the mass market rocketry of the Jetsons to become real in the 70s. Same with the Internet. We didn't really get going until the early 90s cyberjack.

Kids have it so easy these days when they want to look at hot naked chicks. Back in my day, you had to find your friends dads playboys, or muster up some courage to try and buy a penthouse from the local 7-11 type store and hoped they wouldn't card you.

Mark Ratner:Kids have it so easy these days when they want to look at hot naked chicks. Back in my day, you had to find your friends dads playboys, or muster up some courage to try and buy a penthouse from the local 7-11 type store and hoped they wouldn't card you.

I was more of a Gent guy. Bigger boobs and all. Course, this was pre-Score era.

I'm an old school IT guy back to the days of paper tape. And I remember what it was like before the Internet reached the public. Seriously, I would put the Internet up with the discovery of fire, the wheel, and the printing press in terms of it's impact. When Vinton Cerf and Berners-Lee die, they should entomb them in a pyramid in Silicon Valley.

The internet, yes, but shouldn't we also celebrate the digital camera at the same time? They're like peanut butter and chocolate. How else would millions of women share, both intentionally and unintentionally, their naughty bits with the entire world?

Baryogenesis:The internet, yes, but shouldn't we also celebrate the digital camera at the same time? They're like peanut butter and chocolate. How else would millions of women share, both intentionally and unintentionally, their naughty bits with the entire world?

Film + scanner then upload to the web. It could still be done, though, yes, slower and more cumbersome. Although I do get the 'unintentionally' reference, to a degree.

The first successful delivery of mail by a rocket in the United States was made on 23 February 1936, when two rockets that were launched from the New Jersey shore of Greenwood Lake landed on the New York shore, some 300 metres away.

FTFA:: "Starting in 1973, work on the powerful and flexible IPS and transmission control protocol (TCP) technology which would change mass communications got under way.

The new systems were designed to replace the more vulnerable network control program (NCP) used previously, making sure the network was not exposed to a single point of failure. "

NO, you dumbass writer. The NCP protocol already had automatic redundant routing. However NCP was a protocol for a single network and every computer had to know every other computer it wanted to communicate with. The replacement IPS with TCP-IP allowed what was then though of as separate networks to be connected together. Why do you think it is called the internet?

Pointy Tail of Satan:I'm an old school IT guy back to the days of paper tape. And I remember what it was like before the Internet reached the public. Seriously, I would put the Internet up with the discovery of fire, the wheel, and the printing press in terms of it's impact. When Vinton Cerf and Berners-Lee die, they should entomb them in a pyramid in Silicon Valley.

I still have card decks and an outstanding ring toss game made using write protect rings somewhere around here. Suddenly I feel really really old...maybe they can be used to build my funeral pyre. My kids don't believe me when I say 'there were no courses or degrees in IT when I was starting out in the business.' You got the software and made it work...or not. There was no one to call, and usually your site was the first one to install it. Baptism by fire fueled by lots of coffee, cigarettes, a few unmentionable other things that may or may not be legal...

The Internet (in the form of ARPAnet) actually was around much longer than this--closer to 41 years, in fact--but in its earlier days used a different protocol, NCP--TCP/IP was tested experimentally in the 70s (originally being based in amateur radio packet protocols) and on "Flag Day" (1 January 1983) the Internet was switched en masse to TCP/IP based networking. (NCP was already showing its age by then, and for several months before "Flag Day" there were gateways set up--then again, conversion en masse was easier because there were a lot fewer sites online then. Quite the far cry from the fustercluck that is trying to get sites to go to IPv6 from IPv4.)

Then again, most of what folks think of re the "modern Internet" dates from the TCP/IP era, so I can see that as a hallmark date for the opening of the "present-day Internet". :D

(Note that I'm also not including That Former Forum Network We Don't Talk About On The Modern Internet. That Network actually used to not have most of its traffic be "liberated" software and video and MP3s, but was used for Fark-esque discussion before the days of WWW forums, and was originally based on a totally different protocol--UUCP, a sort of "store and forward" networking for Unix-based boxen that came about separately in the late 70s, with the earliest beginnings of That Former Forum Network We Don't Talk About On The Modern Internet being in 1981. (There are, remarkably, some very very early archives still available from the pre-TCP/IP Internet era there and on the Telecom Digest list (which dated from 1981). Comparatively speaking, the World Wide Web--especially as it is known now--is just a baby :3)

And for those interested, if we're considering Flag Day 1983 the birth of the modern Internet, this is the closest thing we have to its birth certificate...an old guide on how to convert NCP based sites to TCP/IP including the Spiritual Predecessor of Teredo and 6to4 tunnels. (However, the conversion from NCP to TCP/IP was actually more radical than IPv4 to IPv6.)

BolloxReader:opiumpoopy: CavalierEternal: Wait, you mean the internet hasn't always been around? How did you people share funny picture captions and awkwardly flirt?

In the college dorm, most people had a sheet of paper on their door to receive notes from people dropping by. Funny picture captions and awkward flirtations both got covered by this.

/ I'm talking 1994 here. WWW and common mobile phone ownership started in 1995, the year after I graduated.

// Lawn, etc.

By 1995 we'd upgraded to small dry erase boards. Judging from the content of said boards, Goons had already come into existence.

/phalluses, phalluses as far as the eye could see

Phalluses, yes! Freshman year of college: 2003. Had a cell phone and a dry erase board (makes me an elitist, I'm sure). I'm certain that the dry erase board served as a caveman-painting-type of pornography that only 18-year-olds can appreciate.

The Internet (in the form of ARPAnet) actually was around much longer than this--closer to 41 years, in fact--but in its earlier days used a different protocol, NCP--TCP/IP was tested experimentally in the 70s (originally being based in amateur radio packet protocols) and on "Flag Day" (1 January 1983) the Internet was switched en masse to TCP/IP based networking. (NCP was already showing its age by then, and for several months before "Flag Day" there were gateways set up--then again, conversion en masse was easier because there were a lot fewer sites online then. Quite the far cry from the fustercluck that is trying to get sites to go to IPv6 from IPv4.)

Then again, most of what folks think of re the "modern Internet" dates from the TCP/IP era, so I can see that as a hallmark date for the opening of the "present-day Internet". :D

(Note that I'm also not including That Former Forum Network We Don't Talk About On The Modern Internet. That Network actually used to not have most of its traffic be "liberated" software and video and MP3s, but was used for Fark-esque discussion before the days of WWW forums, and was originally based on a totally different protocol--UUCP, a sort of "store and forward" networking for Unix-based boxen that came about separately in the late 70s, with the earliest beginnings of That Former Forum Network We Don't Talk About On The Modern Internet being in 1981. (There are, remarkably, some very very early archives still available from the pre-TCP/IP Internet era there and on the Telecom Digest list (which dated from 1981). Comparatively speaking, the World Wide Web--especially as it is known now--is just a baby :3)

This was, I think, one of the great moments in human history. When, at least from an idealistic viewpoint, our visionaries were able to implement something that essentially said "We don't have to know you and you don't have to know is, but we are willing to connect with you."

Of course there are all sorts of things that get in the way in the practical world and it was limited in scope until the www came about, but the whole premise of the largely agnostic, open internet continues to boggle my mind even as I've watched it develop since I was in elementary school. Ever since then authoritarians of every stripe have tried to limit and roll back this basic premise. It is a dangerous concept, one that makes the world more vulnerable, undermines social stability and attacks the legitimacy of existing institutions. And I find that to be a very big positive for the internet.